A Bullitt fan, with a dedicated Youtube account, revisits locations used in the Bullitt film. The videos mostly focus on locations that no longer exist (torn down buildings) or those that have changed beyond recognition since 1968. This video is of the initial shots from the chase scenes. This was actually filmed around the time of Steve McQueen's Commitment to Reality Part 1 piece (autumn 2010) but only discovered recently.
The narration and detailed explanation of the car's positioning, and changes to the location relate to the narration of my own Google Maps Guided Tour piece.
Darryl, this is for you...
A tourist records a short narrated video for his brother, a Bullitt fan. Although he is nowhere near the actual locations used in the film. This failure is highlighted by another Youtube user in the comment's section of the video:
The Bullitt chase was not filmed anywhere near this area.
northbeachson 9 months ago
This video is indicative of many on Youtube, where tourists amateurishly video and narrate their experiences of locations from Bullitt.
Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson collaborated on ‘Swamp’.
Connection to Google Maps piece and Bermondsey California Sunset. Holt films on a Bolex camera while walking through the long grass guided by Smithsons off camera directions.
Moving camera maps a journey or space through relayed instructions.
Fan made video featuring a commercially available scale model of the Bullitt Mustang. The model appears to move void of location, through camera movement and an improvised infinity curve.
Static cars are made to appear moving through a variety of CGI locations using a motion control rig and green screen.
An example of motion control systems being used to identically recreate movements around a car in completely separate locations, so that they can be seamlessly cut between during editing.
A completely automated motion control movement simulating a hand-held camera in a moving car (the car is not moving). The use of technology to recreate an analog limitation, and in many ways undesirable characteristic of filming in a moving vehicle is interesting.
My attempt at simulating bumps in the road (as captured by the moving camera car) using the Revolver motion control remote. As you can see, it's hard.
Steve McQueen's Commitment to Reality Part 3
On set video documentation of the shoot, with footage of the motion control rig in action
Alex Hubbard at the 2010 Whitney Biennial
From the catalog:
"Alex Hubbard makes short videos that explore the complex pleasures of destruction. Operating just outside of the camera frame, Hubbard spills, cuts, tears, drops, and burns a visually seductive litany of objects. Aleatory compositions, which he compares to paintings, continuously emerge from cluttered arrangements of flowers, paint, mylar, champagne, and other materials, before being swept aside as waste."
This is the actual Ford Mustang Bullitt replica that was used in my final "Steve Mcqueen's Commitment to Reality" shoot. The positioning of iconic pop culture object (and action of a 'burnout') against the completely removed location of a Topps Tiles carpark makes this much more complicated and interesting than the simple 'fan video' that it would initially appear to be.
One of a few car chase videos recommended to me by David, owner of the Ford Mustang (Bullitt Replica) that we used in Steve McQueen's Commitment to Reality Part 3
The Follow (2001) Directed by Kar Wai Wong
Part of a series of short films commissioned by BMW, using Hollywood actors and cinematic directors.
Aspiration towards cinema, in what is fundamentally a commercial for BMW cars.
Cars, driving and moving through locations underpin many Hollywood plotlines - it is interesting that this is the first project to be out-writedly produced by an actual car company. The traditional product-placement culture now seems redundant.
Carpenter's Jingle for KFRC (san francisco based radio station).
KFRC gingle compilation. Like the previous audio file, this is a compilation of all jingles from the (pictured) retiring DJ's career. It is interesting to see the compilation, and it's dragging, repetitive format alongside a real-world reaction. Emotions mixed with the absurdity of the jingle repetition.
Again, real world repetition and prolonged/repeated performance for an audio element that has a duration of only a few seconds.
Fan video of Grand Theft Auto game, where the physics code has been modified so that cars have no friction with surfaces within their digital world. When they begin to accelerate, or are touched by the player, they accelerate exponentially. In a format that is meant to convey reality as closely as possible (the video game), it takes a great amount of work (on the part of the fan) to 'unpick' the limitations of reality. Undoing the work of the original coders and allowing the cars to behave in a way that would seem logical to the set of computer rules that created it.
The morphing and stretching of the video 'surface' in this piece is created through use of digital post-production camera-steadying technologies. It has similarities with the stretching, blurring and 3 dimensional qualities within internet experiences such as Google Street View (see Google Map Guided Tour piece).
The spatial changes in my 'Approximately 14875 Abstract Images Depicting a Car Chase' piece also have alot in common with the spatilizing of this particular 2d video image.